England star Kelly Smith returned to action for the Philadelphia Charge after missing five games with a stress fracture on her right ankle. A few days later, she found out that she was on the England roster for this summer’s European Championship in Germany. BY KELLY SMITH England coach Hope Powell called me on Wednesday to tell me I’m on the roster. I’m definitely excited to make the squad for England. Having a chance to represent your country is always an honor. I get to do it now on the big stage. I don’t know when exactly I’ll leave for England. I want to play for the Charge in the New York game on June 17, but the England team meets up on the 15th. Obviously, if Hope wants me back on the 15th, I will be back. Coach Mark Krikorian is like, “Go join your national team when you have to.” Right now I’m 70 percent game fit. I’m hoping these next two games — the Carolina game and hopefully the New York game — will lift my match fitness before going back to England and training with them. I was praying that when I did return that my ankle wouldn’t act up doing the running. If it would have, I wouldn’t be going to Germany with my national team. Hope wanted me to be playing leading into the tournament. I’m just excited about the whole thing and hoping we play the best we can and hopefully progress to the semifinals or the final. Back on the field. It was so weird. I just got over being out five weeks. Just when I was ready to play again, I got a sinking cold. I was very nasal, had a sore throat. I wasn’t feeling 100 percent myself but wanted to get back and test my ankle out. I just woke up with it. But I played with it. Coming back to play for the Charge last weekend felt good. We were playing Washington at home. Since we were 2-0 down early in the second half, I had a feeling I’d be going in. I didn’t think to much about how it was my first game back from injury. I just put my shinguards on and warmed up. I played 29 minutes, and it was good to be back. I was out the whole month of May, but my ankle feels so much better. I was kind of scared to get back into it. When my team came back from the previous game at Washington, I was told my MRI of my ankle was clear, and I was allowed to do some running while the team was training. I didn’t feel any pain whatsoever. I’ll probably be a sub again for tomorrow’s game against Carolina because I’m not match fit, but I hope to see some time. It’s bad that the injury happened when it did. I’m only going to play half the WUSA season. I missed one month due to injury. If England does well, I’m not going to come back till maybe the first week of July. One month there and then I’ll also have August. I’ll have missed half the season. I’m definitely happy we’re still among the top teams, but I had all these high hopes of doing various things for myself. I didn’t set myself a target, but I wanted to be up there with the leading goalscorers. That’s kind of put me back a bit. Charge keeps rolling. When I was out, I thought my teammates played very well. Everybody stepped up. There are so many different scorers on our team. Nobody’s scoring all the goals, spread between a lot of players. They want to win. Of course, Liu Ailing has scored a few goals lately. Ailing is feeling more comfortable with herself. She came in kind of quiet, but she’s been laughing and joking with us in the locker room. She’s flying right now. She’s just happy to be playing and scoring. When she plays well and is on her game, everybody else on our team plays better because she’s the playmaker. It took time for her to gel with different players and get the feeling where people would play the ball, where they would make runs. Rakel Karvelsson has been playing well. She took Lorrie Fair’s position when she was injured. She set up the second goal when we beat Washington. Laurie Schwoy is our playmaker. She wins the ball a lot in the air, has good vision. We bring her in and take a forward out and push Ailing forward. That’s worked out. Other Philly team. I’ve enjoyed watching the 76ers in the NBA finals. Hopefully they’ll bring it back and win it here. Go Sixers! (England veteran Kelly Smith set NCAA career records with 3.41 points per game and 1.49 goals per game while at Seton Hall, where she also served as assistant coach. Philadelphia chose her and Doris Fitschen with the second pick in the WUSA’s foreign draft. Kelly’s column appears monthly on SoccerAmerica.com.)